Enigma
by ParisWriter
Summary: It is the events in our lives which often shape who we later become, and therefore determine our destiny. This is the story of L and the only person he ever truly cared about. L-centric, pre-Death Note L/OC Warning: contains sensitive subject matter.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes:

A couple of things I've filled in this chapter:

-Since we don't really know anything on L's background other than he's not full Japanese and lived in England for five years before moving to Japan, I have decided that he's actually half-Japanese, half-French, and was born in the States.

-L's eye color isn't exactly clearly stated, but judging by the anime I'm going to say they're a dark grey. Light's eyes are definitely brown in the anime, but L's aren't the same color as his.

-For those who are curious, Mia's name is pronounced "Mee-ah," not "My-ah."

**EDIT:** Well, I was hoping I wasn't going to have to put this here, because I thought it was a tad bitchy, but you can blame some idiot anonymous reviewer for it:

_Do not_ even think to bitch at me because L "isn't acting in-character." I am aware of this fact. He's not _going_ to be completely in-character for the majority of this story. As the summary suggests, the events that happen to him in this story are the ones that shape him into the L we all know and love from the manga. So while he does still have a number of his quirks, don't get bent out of shape when others are left out (at least until toward the end).

* * *

Chapter One

**St. Anne's Orphanage – Boston, Massachusetts – 1987**

The boy sat quietly on his assigned bed, ignoring the ruckus being caused by the other children running about the room playing tag. A light spring rain was falling outside the window by his head, and while the majority of people walking by weren't even using umbrellas, it was still enough to make the sisters who ran the establishment insist that the children stay indoors to play. The boy sighed as he turned the newspaper in his hands back to the front page, reaching up to scratch at the back of his head. He knew it was unusual for a child his age to take such an interest in the daily events of the world, but the sisters had grown accustomed to his inquisitive nature and now brought him the paper each day once they had finished reading it.

His dark grey eyes scanned the major story for the day, a follow-up on a tragic incident he had read about a few weeks prior. A young girl named Mia, only one year younger than himself, had been found hiding in a closet of the one-bedroom apartment where her mother had been brutally raped and murdered. Unlike most other seven-year-old children, he fully understood what those words meant and his heart had gone out to the poor girl whose picture had appeared on the front page. The subsequent reports in the news stated that she had told the authorities she heard three distinct male voices, but had not seen any faces due to her position. The police really didn't have much to go on other than her testimony, and it seemed as though the woman's killers would continue to roam freely.

The boy sighed as he folded up the paper and set it aside, then wrapped his arms around his bent legs and rested his chin against his knees. He traced his bottom lip with his thumb as he became lost in thought, wondering what sort of a world they lived in where a woman could be violated and killed, her child orphaned, and justice not be brought to those responsible. He had once discussed the issue of justice with the sisters who ran the orphanage, and they all told him the same thing: God will see to it that the wicked are punished and the just rewarded when their time should come. But what if there was no God? Then who would make those men pay for what they had done?

It wasn't like what had happened to him. He was an orphan, too, but his parents had died in a car accident when he was only eight months old. There was no way he could seek justice from the car they had been in, no way he could demand that the road they had been driving on pay for the sin of taking their lives. Yet even if there was, he had no desire to do such a thing, for he did not remember them. He had been far too young when they died to recall so much and their faces and voices. He possessed no memories; All he had to remember them by was a stuffed rabbit that sat on his bed at the orphanage.

The clock tower of the church next door began to chime the hour – five o'clock – and the boy looked up from his thoughts and turned his head toward the front door of the orphanage. As if on cue, it opened and a tall, middle-aged woman entered, leading a small girl by the hand. The girl had long blonde hair, held back from her face by a headband with a flower on it, and wide, sea green eyes. She looked about fearfully as the woman led her over to two of the sisters and began speaking to them in hushed tones.

_Right on time_, the boy thought to himself. He had heard the sisters whispering about the girl in the news, saying how she had no living relatives and would be coming to live at St. Anne's until a suitable family could be found to take her in. The court-appointed social worker was to drop her off at five o'clock that afternoon. He had been waiting, eager for a chance to talk to the girl and try to get as much information as he possibly could about what had happened to her.

Seeing that the social worker was busy filling out the required paperwork, he got up from his bed and approached the girl, his bare feet slapping loudly on the stone floor with each step he took. He ran a hand back through his disheveled black hair and smoothed out the plain cotton shirt he wore, attempting to make himself look presentable, then placed his hands in his pockets.

"Hi," he said once he reached the girl, giving her a small, lopsided grin. She immediately shrank back away from him, attempting to hide herself behind the woman who had brought her to the shelter. The boy frowned at her reaction, straightening his posture and reaching up to tug gently on his bottom lip, his eyes moving around the room while he thought of what he might be able to do to help set her at ease.

Thinking quickly, he ran back to his bed and grabbed the stuffed rabbit his parents had given to him, then made his way back to her. He held the rabbit out toward her, holding it by one floppy ear, and she took in his appearance once more: the messy hair, the dark eyes, his slouching posture. Her hand began reaching out for the toy, but she suddenly stopped and pulled it back, shrinking away from him even more.

"It's okay," he assured her. "You can take it. I know you're scared, and that's why I'm giving it to you. It always helps me when I need to be brave."

The girl seemed to think about what he had said for a moment, then nodded slightly and slowly reached for the toy, taking it from his hand and holding it tightly to her chest as she whispered a thank you.

"My name's L," the boy told her, taking a few cautious steps toward her. She didn't try to move farther away from him, and for that he was glad.

"That's not a name," she told him, her voice quiet and unsure.

"It's _my_ name," he replied, tilting his head slightly to one side as he looked at her. Her eyes were such an unusual shade of green-grey, and they reminded him of when the sisters had taken him and some of the other children to the beach the previous summer.

"What's your name?" he asked her, though he already knew the answer.

"Mia," she answered, raising the stuffed rabbit in her arms slightly to hide her face behind its head.

"I heard about what happened to your mom," L whispered to her so the adults standing nearby wouldn't hear. "I'm sorry." She looked away from him, and he saw tears forming in her eyes as he began to speak once more. "I never knew my mom, you know. She and my dad died when I was just a baby. You're lucky. I'm sure you have lots of memories of your mom."

Mia nodded, still not looking at him, and a couple of tears broke free as she blinked.

"Maybe you could tell me some stories about her sometime. I've always wanted to know what having a mom would be like."

She finally turned her eyes back to him again, and he gave her a small smile. "Don't cry, Mia. Someday I'm going to be a detective, and I'll find the men who hurt your mom and make sure they're brought to justice."

**London, England – Ten Years Later**

Mia Harper stared at her reflection in the mirror hanging on the back of her dorm room door, letting out a small sigh as she pulled her long, blonde hair back into a loose ponytail. She wondered when she had gone from having pure blonde locks to ones that were almost dark enough to be considered brown, but shrugged it off as one of he many side-effects of growing up.

"Not like he'd recognize you anyway," she said to herself, glancing down at the modest amount of cleavage showing through her top. Satisfied with her appearance, she crossed the room to her school-issued bed and picked up the stuffed rabbit she still kept before sitting down and placing the toy in her lap. A smile tugged at her lips as she straightened the tiny vest it was wearing and she remembered the day she had first met the odd little boy with a letter for a name – the first and only friend she had made at St. Anne's.

At first, she had been reluctant to socialize with him. She was still traumatized from her mother's murder, and the boy had been so... strange, that she wasn't sure that she felt entirely uncomfortable around him. Something about him – the way he insisted on sitting in a crouching position no matter where he was, his constant staring and slouching, the way he _always_ went barefoot – just made her uncomfortable.

But he had been persistent, claiming over and over that he was going to be some great detective when he grew up one minute, then asking her questions about her mother the next. Eventually, she found herself opening up to the boy and telling him about every little thing she remembered. He just listened, staring at her with that thoughtful look on his face as he traced his bottom lip with his thumb, and she was surprised to discover that talking actually made her feel... better.

The two of them ended up becoming close friends. When she began having nightmares about her mother's death, he had let her sleep in his bed with him, even though they both got in trouble with the sisters for it the next morning. He would read to her while the other children played, telling her stories from grown-up books with no pictures. Occasionally, she would drag him outside and insist he swing with her on the small playground behind the orphanage. They exchanged presents at Christmas and cards on Valentine's Day, and he made her a picture frame for her birthday. The frame had fallen apart within a week, but she still had the picture – a photograph one of the sisters had taken of the two of them as they were reading one day.

Then, a couple of months after her birthday, a man had come to the orphanage to speak with the sisters...

_He called himself Quillsh Wammy – an even stranger name than L's, she thought – and told them he was opening a special home for intellectually gifted children. Upon hearing this, Mia immediately thought of L. He was certainly smart – a lot smarter than any of the other children at the orphanage, herself included. When she realized, though, that this man meant to take L away from St. Anne's, she immediately ran to her friend and told him, begging him to hide so he couldn't be taken away._

_L didn't hide, though. Instead, he decided to have a talk with the man, and to Mia's dismay he announced that he was leaving to go stay at this special home. Mia yelled at him and cried, and begged him again not to go, but his mind was already made up. The man told the sisters he would be back in one week to pick up L, and Mia spent most of that week sulking and refusing to talk to him. He was supposed to be her best friend, and he was going to leave her. After five days, L came over to her bed and sat down on it in his odd, crouching manner, staring at her much like he had after she first arrived._

"_Please don't be angry, Mia," he said, resting his hands on his knees and leaning forward in an attempt to see her face, which she had turned away from him once he sat beside her. "I still want to be friends."_

"_But you're leaving," she replied, her voice tiny and strained as she struggled to keep from crying._

"_I know... But I'll write. Every week. I promise... Will you write me back?"_

_She didn't answer him, didn't look at him until he grabbed the rabbit from her pillow and held it out in front of her, dangling it by one floppy ear._

"_Be brave? For me?" he requested, and she finally turned to face him as she took the toy from his hand. She was crying again, but she managed to nod an agreement. L hesitated, then leaned toward her and put his arms around her shoulders in a loose hug._

"_Promise you'll never forget me," she whispered to him as she hugged him back._

"_Only if you promise not to forget me," he requested, in turn..._

She hadn't forgotten him, and for the first year and a half they wrote each other constantly. Mr. Wammy took L to all sorts of places while the special home was being planned and built in England, and L sent her pictures and postcards from the many destinations he visited. She felt like her letters couldn't possibly be as interesting to him as his were to her, but whenever he wrote back his responses to everything she told him were enthusiastic, even if her only news was that she had learned to read a new word.

Then, when she was nine years old, she was adopted by a doctor and his wife. She wasn't sure how she would feel about having a new family, but Matthew and Rebecca Harper had been kind, generous people and they welcomed her into their life with open arms and warm hearts. She began going to a real school – quite unlike the small one the sisters ran for the children at the orphanage – and made several new friends within the first couple of weeks.

Her life was looking up, but even as things were taking a turn for the better for her, she began slacking on her communications with L. She would often not write back until after she had received two, three, or even four of his letters. Then the Harpers had relocated to another state, taking Mia with them, and the letters simply stopped. She never knew if it was a matter of them not being forwarded properly, or if L had given up on her. Maybe she would find out, though.

In all honesty, she hadn't thought about him much in the past few years, but then Matthew had decided to move the family back to his native England and open up his own private medical practice there. At the very mention of the proposed move, Mia thought of L – more specifically, of the special home that Mr. Wammy had been planning to build in England. Even though she knew it was probably a long shot, a part of her hoped that maybe she would be able to locate L and get back in touch with him again.

Her first two months of searching had proven fruitless, for all she had to go on was his first name, and searching the local phone and address directories for someone named "L" inevitably gave her the name of every person who either went by that first initial or had names that started with the letter L. She had nearly given up hope when one day, as she was getting ready to move into the dormitory at the boarding school the Harpers had enlisted her in, something caught her eye. She was carefully wrapping pictures in newspaper when she found herself staring at a photo on the front page of the sports section.

_George Hendsley and L. Lawliet_, read the caption beneath, _will be competing for the junior national tennis cup in the final round this Sunday._

Mia's breath had caught in her throat as she simply stared at the picture. He was older, and taller, but it was him. He had the same messy, dark hair, the same slouched posture... and though the photograph only showed the top half of his body, she was willing to bet he was barefoot, as well.

Mia turned slightly on the bed and picked up the newspaper article. She had carefully cut it out of the paper and brought it with her when she moved into her dorm the previous day so she wouldn't forget to attend his championship match.

She hadn't told anyone of her plans to attend the match, partly because she was afraid she was getting her expectations to high just by attending. After all, ten years was a long time, and while they had exchanged letters, they had never traded pictures. He might not have changed much in the time since they last saw one another, but she certainly had. She'd grown up and filled out and her hair had changed color. It wasn't likely he would remember her anyway, even if he _did_ recognize her, but she still wanted to see him again.

"I could never forget you, L," she whispered as she traced her fingertips over his picture in the article. "But do you even remember me?"


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: What a month it's been! First, I was placed on dialysis and had to spend four days in the hospital for surgery. Then, I fell ill and ended up spending another two weeks in the hospital almost immediately after that. Now I've got a brand-spakin'-new laptop, and I'm ready to go! My apologies to everyone who has been waiting for this chapter. I sincerely thank you for your patience. Also, please note that I really no _nothing_ about tennis. Everything in this chapter is based on some information I found on a website.

**EDIT:** Well, I was hoping I wasn't going to have to put this here, because I thought it was a tad bitchy, but you can blame some idiot anonymous reviewer for it (yeah I know this is on the first chapter, too but I wanted to make sure _everyone_ saw it, not just new readers starting from the beginning):

_Do not_ even think to bitch at me because L "isn't acting in-character." I am aware of this fact. He's not _going_ to be completely in-character for the majority of this story. As the summary suggests, the events that happen to him in this story are the ones that shape him into the L we all know and love from the manga. So while he does still have a number of his quirks, don't get bent out of shape when others are left out (at least until toward the end).

* * *

Chapter Two

Mia swore under her breath as she ran toward the tennis stadium, her ponytail flapping about behind her and her shoulder bag flopping against her hip. Her parents had warned her about the London cabbies and their propensity for taking the longest, most meandering route possible – especially when their fare was a tourist – but she had figured they were just exaggerating. Now, she was wishing she had put on a fake British accent just so she wouldn't have had to spend the last twenty minutes riding aimlessly around the downtown area.

Her fare had ended up being almost twice as much as she had planned to pay, and she was probably going to end up having to walk back, but that wasn't her biggest concern at the moment. Her palms were sweaty and her heart was racing, not so much from rushing into the stadium as from her nervousness over seeing L again. She had tried to figure out exactly what she was going to say to him during the cab ride, but everything she came up with either sounded too phony or contrived.

She stopped at the ticket box office just outside the stadium entrance, showing the seller her student ID in order to receive the discounted admission price, and paid for her ticket before entering the stadium proper. She could hear applause echoing toward her from the stands above, and wondered who was winning the current game. She had no real knowledge of the sport, and had spent a couple of hours the night before giving herself a crash course in the finer points of the game, such as scoring.

"Thirty - love," announced the voice of a stuffy older man over the stadium's PA system. Mia searched her brain for what that meant, and after a moment recalled that in tennis, love is zero and a score of thirty meant the other player had two points. So whoever was currently serving was winning by a margin of two. At least... that's what she thought that meant.

Mia emerged at the top of the stadium's tiered seating and stood on her tiptoes, straining to see the court as much as looking for a place to sit. The players were already hitting the ball back and forth, so it was hard to tell who had served and therefore who was leading. Frowning slightly, she looked around for some sort of standing board with the current score, but found none. Knowing it might be a while before one of the players missed and she found out the score, she tapped a person seated nearby on the shoulder to ask.

The woman turned at looked at Mia almost distastefully, wrinkling her nose as the sight of her, dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans and a black tank top. Mia suddenly became very aware that – appearance-wise – she didn't fit in with the crowd at all. Of course, the fact that she stuck out like a sore thumb was bound to get L to notice her, but she still wasn't sure she wanted to be making that sort of impression.

"Um... Excuse me, ma'am," she addressed the woman, her voice breaking slightly. She cleared her throat before continuing. "I was wondering if you could tell me who's winning the game so far?"

"The score is thirty – love, in favor of Lawliet," the woman replied before haughtily turning her attention back to the court below.

Mia muttered a thank you and slowly made her way farther up the stairs toward the lower part of the seating area, hoping for a closer view of L's game. She craned her neck, standing on her tiptoes and cursing her lack of better genetics, wishing for even just two more inches to her height so she could see what was going on over the hat-covered heads in the first few rows. Straining her feet to the point where she could have nearly been dancing ballet, she finally spotted an empty chair in the third row back, almost near center court. In her excitement at spotting a seat, she toppled over and fell on the stairs, letting out a loud yelp as she brought up her hands to break her fall before she smacked her face against one of the concrete steps. Several of the spectators turned to look at her and she quickly averted her eyes, a blush rising in her cheeks as she wondered if the sounds of her fall ad carried onto the court. She really didn't know which would be worse: if L had heard her fall, or if hearing her fall might be enough to break his concentration and cause him to lose the point.

Mia hastily pulled herself to her feet and brushed the dirt off her clothes before moving as casually as she could up the rest of the stairs and toward the third row. The seat she had spotted was the fourth one in, and she wasn't going to be able to take it without making some sort of a scene. She decided to wait until the point was awarded and quickly make her way to the empty seat before the next serve. Standing in the aisle at the end of the row, she had a clear view of the court, and of the players.

It wasn't hard for her to tell which one of them was L. The other young man had ginger-colored hair, instantly ruling him out. Mia watched in amazement as L moved easily to return the ball each time to his opponent, the power behind his strikes almost surprising in comparison to his slight frame. She honestly didn't remember him being so thin when he was younger, of course she reasoned that his own growth spurts might have caused him to thin out rather than fill out. She bit her lip nervously as she continued watching him, gasping softly when he nearly missed the ball, and sighing with relief when he managed to hit it into his opponent's side of the court, just out of his reach.

"Forty – love," announced the stuffy voice. "Game point."

Mia quietly excused herself as she squeezed past the three spectators sitting between her and her seat, not noticing that L was watching her from the court.

**

* * *

**

"Forty – love, game point."

L idly bounced the tennis ball at his feet, silently cursing himself. How had he so foolishly miscalculated that hit? It had almost cost him the point, but he had managed to think and act quick enough to correct his own error and score. It seemed that even though he had spent hours studying George Hendsley's playing technique, he still did not have a 100 percent comprehension of it. Instead, it appeared that he was only able to predict his opponent's moves 95 percent of the time. A challenge, certainly, but he was never one to pass up any sort of challenge.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he turned his head slightly to peer through his dark hair at the source of the disruption. Among the usual, upper-class attendees of his previous tennis matches, he spotted a teenage girl who was obviously out of place. She was probably close to his own age, wearing a pair of dark jeans that he thought were a bit too tight on her slim figure, and a dark tank top that showed entirely too much skin for such an event. He shook his head slightly, smirking inwardly at the foreigner – he was 99.6 percent sure she wasn't a local because she would have known the customary attire to wear to the match if she was – and began his serve as she finally settled in her seat and turned her attention fully toward the court.

Eyes going wide, he fumbled his serve and the ball nicked the net, barely crossing over into the other side of the court.. The crowd gasped in surprise as he was given a second chance to complete the serve, and L paced along his side of the court, observing the girl in the stands through his messy hair as he attempted to appear as though he was merely coming up with his game strategy.

Her hair was a bit darker than he recalled, and it was hard to judge the color of her eyes from the distance, but something about the shape of her face struck a familiar chord within him. The slope of her nose and the fullness of her cheeks recalled the memory of a girl he once knew when he was living at the orphanage in Boston. There was a chance that it might not be her, but he was 97.8 percent sure that this young woman was the same girl he had once known.

L successfully completed his reserve, and easily took the final point to win the first game of the set, the stadium erupting in applause. He glanced at the girl to find her clapping even more fervently than those seated around her, her mouth upturned in a proud smile. He made a point of walking on the side of the court closest to the stands as he changed sides of the court for the next game, and chanced a look up at her in order to see if he could better judge the color of her eyes. His mouth fell open slightly as her sea-green gaze met his and her smile took on a faint air of recognition before she looked away, a blush creeping across her cheeks.

The rest of the match went by mostly as he had expected. His opponent managed to get the better of him on a few occasions – mostly when his mind was wandering to the girl in the stands and the likelihood that she was, in fact, that same girl from the orphanage – but he still came out victorious in the end. As was customary, he shook his opponent's hand and received his trophy, posing for photographs and replying to reporters' questions about how it felt to be the junior national champion. L politely humored the media representatives, even though he felt uncomfortable being in the spotlight. He loved the game, but sincerely disliked being in the public eye. He supposed that was just the price he had to pay for playing, but still wished he could somehow retain his anonymity.

He felt a presence next to him and looked to his right to see Watari standing at his side, patiently waiting for him to conclude his talk with the reporters so that they could return to Whammy House. L knew that Near and Mello would both be excited once they saw the size of his trophy, and they would want details on the entire match, but he had other things to attend to before he could return home.

Handing his trophy to Watari, L thanked the reporters and excused himself, pushing his way through the wall of journalists and photographers and making his way to the stands. Most of the crowd had already dissipated, but those in the seats closer to the court had been forced to wait until the spectators closest to the exits were clear before they could leave. This was most fortunate for him, because he knew the girl he had spotted during his match was seated relatively close to the court. He only hoped he had been quick enough with the reporters so that she might still be in the stadium, or else he might never make contact with her. Fortunately, he spied her as he approached the stands. She had her back to him and was just starting to leave the stadium when he reached the barricade between the court and the spectators.

"Excuse me?" L called out, not wanting to say her name and make a fool of himself if it wasn't her. She didn't respond, however, and so he decided to risk his own embarrassment by possibly being mistaken.

"Mia!" he nearly yelled, and the girl stopped in her tracks. She simply stood there a moment, then slowly turned and looked over her shoulder in his direction. Now that he was finally close enough to get a good look at her eyes, he was positive of her identity, and a small smile formed across his lips. "Please, don't go anywhere. I'll be right there."

He quickly made his way to the locker rooms and sprinted through them and toward the main entrance of the stadium's seating area, making sure to select the stairs closest to where she had been sitting. It was awkward for him to be moving so fast – and several people gave him curious looks as he brushed by them, muttering his apologies – but seeing her again was almost like finding a long-lost family member. She had been the only other child who even dared to talk to him at St. Anne's. When he left, they had managed to keep in touch for over a year before her letters started to lessen in their frequency before finally stopping altogether. If nothing else, he needed to know why she had stopped writing to him – if it had been something he had said in one of his own letters, or if she had simply tired of him. It was the sort of question he most disliked: an unanswered one.

After pushing his way through the last of the spectators who were leaving the stands, he finally emerged outside once more and found her sitting in a chair along the aisle, waiting for him. She stood as he approached, tucking a few strands of dark blonde hair that had come loose from her ponytail back behind her ear, and gave him an awkward smile as he stood before her, taking in her appearance. She was taller than she had been, but still small in stature and size, and she had filled out in all the appropriate places. Her hair was certainly a lot darker than in his memories, but her eyes were still that same unusual grey-green color he had been so fond of. She was dressed casually, which was how he had spotted her so easily in the crowd, and appeared to be wearing very little – if any – makeup.

"Um... L?" she said after a moment, shifting about a bit uncomfortably as she stood there before him. L blinked several times and, realizing he had been staring, bowed his head slightly in shame.

"I apologize for making you uncomfortable, Mia," he told her as he looked up into her eyes once more. "I was simply observing all of the changes you have gone through since we last saw one another."

"Oh, that's okay," she replied, tucking the loose hair behind her ear once more. L suddenly realized it was a nervous habit, and found himself smiling once more.

"It certainly has been a long time."

"Yeah, it has," she agreed. She appeared to want to say something else, but stopped herself for some reason. L tilted his head slightly as he watched her, wondering if she would gain the courage to say whatever was on her mind or if he would have to ask her himself.

"Why did you stop writing?" she suddenly blurted out, causing him to blink in surprise as her question. It was now his turn to stand there, speechlessly debating whether or not to ask what was on his own mind.

"Why did _you_ stop writing?" he echoed after a brief period of thought.

"Your letters stopped coming after we moved to Arizona," she explained to him, tucking her hands into the front pockets of her jeans and shrugging her slender shoulders. "I guess I just assumed you didn't want to hear from me any more."

"Well," L said as he took another step closer to her, "I suppose it doesn't matter now. We are both here, and fortunately we both remember one another. So why don't we let the past be the past and focus instead on reacquainting ourselves with one another in the present?"

Mia smiled, nodding her head, and L felt an odd sort of tightening in his chest. He raised his hand to the sport, momentarily alarmed by the sensation, then realized it was not anything adverse to his health and let his hand fall back to his side. He looked at her and found her gazing at him with a concerned expression on his face, and quickly assured her that he was fine.

"Are you sure?" she asked. He nodded, a faint smile on his lips.

"As touched as I am by your concern, Mia," he told her, "I can assure you that I am, without a doubt, in perfect health. Now, could I possibly entice you to join me for dinner so that we might be able to further reacquaint ourselves with one another?"

Mia nodded in agreement, then frowned slightly and began shaking her head instead as she raised her arm and checked her watch.

"Damn," she swore under her breath before returning her attention to him. "I would love to, L, but I have something planned tonight. Could I maybe take a rain check on that offer?"

"Of course. How about Thursday afternoon?" he offered. "We could meet for lunch."

Mia shook her head once more. "I have classes all week."

"Saturday, then?" L suggested, and was pleased when she finally nodded and didn't change her mind. "Very well, then. We will meet on Saturday for lunch. You can decide on the restaurant."

"Oh, no, you decide," she insisted. "You've been living here longer than I have, I'm sure you know the best places."

L struggled not to frown at her insistence that he choose where they go to eat. It was true that he had been living in England for several years, but nearly all of his time was spent at Wammy House. He never went about on the town like regular young people his own age, so how was he to know where the "hip" places to dine were? He decided that he would investigate to find out.

"I will send a car for you on Saturday," he told her. "Where do you live?"

"I'm going to school at the Pembroke Academy," she informed him. L committed the information to memory.

"Then that's where I will send the car for you. Shall we say, one o'clock?" he asked.

"Sounds good," Mia replied, making a tucking motion behind her ear even though no hair had come loose from before. "See you then."

L watched her walk away, holding his breath until he could no longer see her. Once she had vanished from his sight, he breathed deeply a few times and headed away from the stands with the intent of returning to the locker rooms to change.

As Watari watched from the court, he swore the boy was walking a bit taller than usual.


End file.
